And In The Meantime...

Helmet
Album: Meantime
In the Meantime

It was 1992 and the record industry was looking for the next Nirvana.  Helmet was a relatively obscure New York based metal band that, in the wake of their first album, Strap It On, caught the eye of several labels hoping to strike it rich.  Interscope records offered the band a $1 million signing bonus -- at the time a huge sum of money -- and unprecedented creative control to make their major label debut.  Meantime was the result.

Glenn Branca has been a fixture in New York avant-garde classical, jazz, and rock circles since the mid-70s.  I first became aware of him when he was writing music for electric guitar ensembles as part of the so-called "No Wave" scene.  Page Hamilton, a young jazz guitarist, often recorded with Branca during this time, and so when he joined the moderately successful No Wave band Band of Susans I began to follow his career with interest.  It wasn't long before he started his own band, Helmet.

To be perfectly honest I didn't really like Helmet's first album.  I dug the way the band members attacked their instruments, but there was...something missing.  Even today I can't quite put my finger on it.  A sameness to the songs.  A lack of focus.  A lack of textural definition.  Something.  Regardless, the band had potential.  And then came the post-grunge scramble to cash in on Nevermind, and Helmet's huge deal with Interscope was trumpeted in the music press.  Everyone expected great things.

Meantime is also unfocused.  But whereas Strap It On is stultifying, Helmet's second album explodes with energy.  The short staccato riffs give the songs kick-ass inertia.  The growling vocals are a little more forward in the mix.  And the refreshingly clean production provides textural definition.  All in all a huge improvement.  Some of the songs are absolute killers.  Even today I listen regularly to "Unsung" and, most of all, "In the Meantime," which I rate close to the very best Rage Against the Machine tracks in its ability to get me thrashing across my living room, banshee style.  Crank it up dude.